Flash Grilled: Nacho Manzano
What was your first job?
I have always been a cook. I have been working as a cook since I was fourteen years old. When I was a kid, I used to help my mother in the kitchen and my father with the cattle. When I was a teenager I went to learn with a local chef at his restaurant in a nearby town and from then on, I have always been a cook.
What is your guiltiest food pleasure?
Every so often I manage to find the time to enjoy an evening with good friends, local food and good Asturian cider.
What’s the best restaurant meal you’ve ever had?
At Martin Berasategui. He is a great chef and his eponymous restaurant is excellent.
What industry figure do you most admire, and why?
Joan Roca. I am familiar with his management model, which I love.
If you weren’t in kitchens, what would you do?
I’d probably be a bartender, making cocktails. I love the mixing, the balancing. I think it’s like cooking.
What is your biggest regret?
Not letting go of things that are bothering me. Filling my backpack with too much weight and not letting it go on time.
Pet hate in the kitchen?
The waste of food. I consider food and its supply a very serious world matter and I hate to see irresponsable use or waste of something so precious.
What’s the oddest thing a customer has said to you?
Ordering an Asturian traditional menu at Casa Marcial and complaining afterwards that it wasn´t innovative enough.
What’s the dish you wish you’d thought of?
The traditional Asturian faba bean casserole we call “Fabada”
Describe your cooking style in three words
Light, sharp, seasonal
Most overrated food?
Our grandmothers. Everybody says the best food I’ve ever eaten is “my granny´s” although I think it is an emotional thing as I am pretty sure not every granny in the world is the best cook
Restaurant dictator for a day – what would you ban?
Going to the toilet between dishes.
What’s the worst review you’ve ever had?
It was long time ago from a very sharp food critic in Spain, called Rafael García Santos, whom after dinner gave me a very strong review, to my face. He did it to make me react and I used it to grow. It had a motivational intention.
If you could cook for anyone in the world who would you pick, and why?
Everyone and no one special. I love to cook for anyone who loves food and wishes to try my cuisine. For me every person who comes to my restaurant is special and if you see the location of Casa Marcial you would understand this answer. If I have to pick someone very special to cook for that would be my parents, who are my biggest critics and the ones who have supported every decision I have made as a chef, even though they might not understand it at the time.
What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
Maintain eagerness, perseverance, discipline, endurance and the most important of all, a smile
Which single item of kitchen equipment could you not live without?
A pot because if necessary, I wouldn´t need any other equipment other than a pot, fire and water to cook
What do you cook at home on your days off?
Vegetables
What’s your earliest food memory?
Milk
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Neither is that clever the one who succeed nor that dumb the one who fail
What’s the closest you’ve ever come to death?
When I was born. I imagine that as a traumatic and dangerous moment
Where do you go when you want to let your hair down?
I love to go to the Mirador del Fitu (a beautiful viewpoint) or Playa de Vega (beach). I find both these places inspiring.
Tipple of choice?
Wine and champagne
What would you choose to eat for your last meal?
Grilled hake cheeks (cocochas de merluza a la plancha)
